National Information Center: Expansion of high energy consumption capacity or diversification crisis

Recently, Fan Jianping, chief economist and director of the Economic Forecasting Department of the National Information Center, said at the 5th annual financial market analysis meeting that due to factors such as the increase in the number of bases and the end of inventory replenishment, the trend of economic growth before and after this year is low. Expected. As for the slowdown in economic growth at this stage, Fan pointed out that the reason why the economic growth in the second quarter fell 1.6% compared with the first quarter, and the impact of the base number accounted for about two-thirds. The other one-third reason is that we have taken a series of macro-control policies (such as the National Tenth Article and the State Council's Circular No.12) after the first quarter.

According to Fan Jianping, the main tone of the overall operation of the economy did not appear to be out of control in the first half of the year, but it was not entirely without loss of control. For example, energy conservation and emission reduction have rebounded in the first quarter, and house price fluctuations have exceeded expectations. These problems that are out of control are also the biggest problems currently faced.

Eleventh Five-Year Plan Energy Saving Targets Difficult to Complete on Time

The reduction in energy consumption per 10,000 yuan GDP by about 20% within five years is a binding indicator of the 11th Five-Year Plan, and it is also a government commitment to the people. By 2009, energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP has fallen by 15.69%. According to the trend of the previous four years, this year should be able to achieve a target of a drop of around 20%. However, the energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP in the first quarter did not continue to decline, and it rebounded by 3.2%. The rebounding trend did not reverse in April and May. Since 2010 is the last year of the implementation of the 11th Five-Year Plan, there is little time to reverse the unfavorable situation. The 20% or so energy-saving goal can directly affect the quality of the 11th Five-Year Plan.

Fan Jianping pointed out that the energy saving target is facing difficulties that cannot be completed on time. The deeper reason is that the total energy production capacity scale has not declined in recent years, but has continued to rise. For example, the non-ferrous metals industry's investment in the first half of the year is still very high. Although the scale of the steel industry is not increasing, the planned total investment growth is very high.

Carbon Tariff ** High Energy Consumption Investment Plan in Various Places

According to the mapping of the reserve projects to be invested throughout the period of the 12th Five-Year Plan period, a number of provinces are preparing to build large-scale national deep-water ports as a center to build a huge Lingang Industrial Zone, in addition to generous infrastructure, important industrial layout. The project still revolves around heavy chemical projects such as steel, petrochemical, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, machinery, and automobiles.

In the post-crisis era, why did China's local governments and large state-owned enterprises still uniquely invest in traditional high-energy-consuming industries, and multinational companies or other economies did not make such investments? Fan Jianping said that once the difficulties of the financial crisis have been overcome, it will be inevitable for developed countries to levy carbon import tariffs on high-efficiency products. The value of China's high energy consumption products plus the value of carbon tariffs will no longer be internationally competitive. At the same time, trade protection or trade sanctions against trading partners cannot be justified on the ground of simple trade protection, because low-carbon development has become a global consensus.

Fan Jianping further pointed out that once the above situation has emerged, existing investments and projects under construction cannot be recovered, and domestic production capacity that cannot be digested by exports cannot be fully absorbed by the country. What's more, at the current stage, the production capacity has become overcapacity, and in the future it will most likely cause a huge economic crisis with financial and fiscal risks intertwined. Moreover, this crisis has a wide range of impacts. The money that many banks are tempted into will lead to high rates of bad debt, and the high debt burden of local investment companies will also drag down local finances. An improper large-scale investment in the entire Chinese economy in the post-crisis era will ruin the prospects of our high-growth economy.